Sunday, October 31, 2010

Life is good. The Forces Of Chaos have been vanquished by the Forces Of Order, and the world is at peace.

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Well almost. Brigands and robbers make traveling in the wilds a risky undertaking, and they seem to be getting bolder and stronger. And you'd think the good wizards could do something about the Warp storms (torndao-sized hurricanes) that are getting more frequent.

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Then there's our protagonist, Tarod. Condemned in his homeland for killing his cousin, he escapes when a Warp sweeps him up and away. Near death, he is taken in at The Castle, where Order Magic is taught. Tarod shows a marked ability in that area, but mentally he's very unstable - he sees things and people that no one else does, and strange beings infest his dreams.

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What's To Like...

Louise Cooper raises some interesting questions about the Duality motif. Can you really have Light without Darkness? Do the Forces on both sides view themselves as being Right? Does the absence of Chaos weaken or strengthen Order?

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There's a handy reference map at the front of the book, although The Initiate only has about three settings. The characters are well-developed and Tarod has every guy's love dilemma. Who is best for him - the high-born, ambitious, sexy Sashka Veyyil, or the honest, low-born and frankly plain-looking Cyllan Anassan? Maybe both?

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The book has some slow stretches over the first 200 pages, but the last third is action-packed and moves the plot along nicely.

Silence enveloped them. Even the roar of the tide had been swallowed into nothing, and as the eastern sky turned pewter-dark the distant horizon was blurring into night. Kael forcibly reminded herself that they were still in the world as she knew it; the Castle's pecularities had simply altered time and space by a fraction. A useful precaution, under some circumstances... (pg. 32-33)

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"Order has become so ingrained in this sad little world that its servants no longer have a reason to exist. Oh, your Circle continues, and you pass on to your new Adepts the sum total of your centuries of knowledge. But with no adversary to stand against you, all your knowledge is worthless. With nothing to combat, no wrongs to right, you have no value. What are you, Keridil Toln? What is the justification for your existence in a world where Aeoris reigns unchallenged? To do his will, uphold his laws? His will is done and his laws upheld without the need of your intervention - you have no good reason to exist!" (pg. 182)

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A loaf of bread, an epic fate, and thou...

The overall theme - a reluctant hero who is uncomfortable with his preordained Fate - is similar to that of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. But The Initiate antedates The Wheel of Time by 5 years, so if anyone cribbed the concept, it certainly wasn't Ms. Cooper. The last 100 pages of The Initiate were great, and the Time Master trilogy has the potential to develop some intriguing Epic Fantasy themes. Alas, it seems just as likely to degenerate into some trite love story.

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For some reason, Louise Cooper books are hard-to-find. If I come across the next two in this trilogy (The Outcast and The Master), I'll probably pick them up. But Romance threatens to outstrip Epic Fantasy, and one wonders how much action will be found in a book called "The Outcast". Which means this isn't a series that I'll go out of my way to finish. 6½ Stars.

You start with a hundred or so rats that can talk and think. They got that way by eating from the trash heap outside the wizards' Unseen University. Add one cat (the Amazing Maurice) who can also talk and think. We won't discuss how he came to have the gift. Finally, throw in one stupid-looking kid who can play the flute passably poorly. Whattaya got?

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Nope, not the Pied Piper. But a slick scam that works in one town after another. Until our tricking troupe comes to Bad Blintz.

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Here, there are devilish rat traps and poisons, but no rats. Here, there are two full-time rat catchers who daily display their booty of rat tail "scalps". But those look strangely like dyed shoe laces. Here, the townspeople starve because they believe the rats are eating all the food. And behind all this lurks something dark. Something intelligent. Something evil. Something powerful.

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What's To Like...

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents was Terry Pratchett's first book for Young Readers. It is set in Discworld, but is not considered to be part of that series. Death makes a small appearance (along with his associate, The Grim Squeaker), and Maurice and the rats apparently debuted earlier in Reaper Man(1991), but I haven't read that one yet.

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TAMAHER has a Shrek-esque ability to entertain both young and adult readers. I'm a little surprised that it is listed as a children's book because this isn't some sappy Care Bears tale. There are deaths, assaults, and animal cruelty to go along with the action and adventure.

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Strangely, I found it to be a bit less zany than a typical Discworld novel. It also has chapters, which is a rarity for Pratchett.

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Kewl New Words...

None, although young readers will want to keep a dictionary handy.

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Excerpts...

"You get coconuts," said the kid. "On desert islands. A man selling them told me."

"How?" said Maurice. He wasn't too sure about coconuts.

"I don't know. You just get them."

"Oh, I suppose they just grow on trees, do they?" said Maurice sarcastically. (pg. 18)

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Maurice tried to tell his thoughts to shut up. What a time to get a conscience! What good was a cat with a conscience? A cat with a conscience was a ... a hamster, or something. (pg. 172)

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Rat Catcher 2 fell to his knees. "Please, young sir! Have mercy! If not for me, please think of my dear wife and my four lovely children what'll be without their daddy!"

"You're not married," said Malicia. "You don't have any children!"

"I might want some one day!" (pg. 211)

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Stealing from a thief isn't stealing 'cos it cancels out. (pg. 9)

This is another Pratchett masterpiece, as he demonstrates that he is just as good when writing for a different target audience. There is plenty of action, lots of object lessons, fun characters, sufficient suspense, a tidy ending, and heaps of wit.

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The worst I can say is that it might not be appropriate for sensitive juvenile readers. For everyone else, including those reading it to their children, it will be a treat. 9 Stars.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Beware, criminal element! There's a new crime-fighting team afoot. Old and retired Sherlock Holmes has taken on a 15-year-old precocious protégée, Mary Russell. It'll take her a couple years to learn all about footprints, fibers, disguises, tailing suspects, tobaccos, chemistry (yay!), and the several hundred types of soils in London. Oh, and she ought to learn about bombs, too. Since someone is trying to blow Holmes and everyone associated with him (including protégées) up.

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What's To Like...

Most of the familiar gang is here - Dr. Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Inspector Lestrade, and my personal favorite - brother Mycroft. The Baker Street Irregulars aren't, but one gets the feeling they'll show up pretty soon in one of the sequels.

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The unlikely pairing of sleuths works, although it means the book starts off sluggishly as Mary learns the trade. The first case doesn't start until page 59, and you don't get to the main case (there are three of them) until the book's halfway over. But at least Mary is quicker on the uptake than Stephanie Plum. ;-)

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Laurie King mimics the detecting style of Holmes quite well, but the cases themselves lack the complexity of an Arthur Conan Doyle story. See for example, The Adventure Of The Speckled Band. We will cut some slack here, as this is the debut book in the series. One hopes the mysteries "deepen" as the series progresses. OTOH, the one puzzle to solve is incredibly unfathomable. Don't waste your time trying to decipher it; just let Mary do it.

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And a quick note to Ms. King. Your padding of the Amazon-US and Amazon-Canada reviews of this book is both blatant and excessive. I'm cool with a few self-promoting blurbs there; but when you hit triple digits, give it a rest. Also, you forgot about Amazon-UK.

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Kewl New Words...

Peripatetic : walking around. Peroration : a flowery and highly rhetorical oration. Weald : an area of open or forested countryside (British). Sybaritic : marked by pleasure and luxury. Asperity : with severity or harshness. Vulpine : cunning like a fox. Patristics : the writings of the early Church fathers.

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Excerpts...

I returned to Oxford the following week-end, to a winter term that was much the same as the autumn weeks had been, only more so. My main passions were becoming theoretical mathematics and the complexities of Rabbinic Judaism, two topics that are dissimilar only on the surface. (pg. 54)

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He let himself out into the hallway, then put his head back in the door. "By the way, don't touch that machine on the desk. It's a bomb." (pg. 185)

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"Oh. How is your back?"

"Damn my back, I do wish you would stop harping on the accursed thing. If you must know, I had it serviced again this afternoon by a retired surgeon who does a good line in illegal operations and patching up gunshot wounds. He found very little to do on it, told me to go away, and I find the topic tiresome."

I was pleased to hear his mood so improved. (pg. 241)

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When faced with the unthinkable, one chooses the merely impossible. (pg. 300)

Laurie King makes some changes to the Conan Doyle format. Sherlock Holmes is "cleaner" - he's kicked his drug habits, and has acquired at least a semblance of Alan Alda sensitivity. Also, it doesn't take a matchmaker to sense a budding romance. OTOH, Watson fares poorly here, and the Ultimate Evil is not very ...well... Ultimate.

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The Beekeeper's Apprentice is a decent, but not a great, addition to Holmesian literature. Your rating of the book will depend a lot on how much of a Conan Doyle "purist" you are. I happen to be a pretty staunch one. Will the mysteries get more complex as the series progresses? Or will it schlep into just another forgettable variation of chick-lit? We shall see. The book was sufficiently interesting to merit reading at least one more installment. 6 Stars.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

It's 1798, France is in the post-revolution doldrums, they're at war with all their neighbors, and one of their upstart generals, Napoleon Bonaparte, decides to invade Egypt. His stated aim is to bring cultural enlightenment to the poor, backward Egyptians. But he also wants to threaten British trade interests as far awaay as India.

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Accompanying the Little Corporal are a host of civilian professionals - chemists (yay!), mathematicians, zoologists, civil engineers, etc. One of them is our hero, Ethan Gage, who is the "electricity expert". But he's also along for protection. He recently won a strange medallion in a card game that lots of evil-doers seem to think is worth killing him for.

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What's To Like...

There's a kewl pic of the mysterious medallion right on the front cover for easy reference. There's lots of action, some puzzles to be fathomed, and if you're into Egyptian mysteries, this is a book for you.

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Frankly, what I liked the most about this book was its historical fiction. There are a bunch of books about the Reign of Terror, and a bunch about Napoleon meeting his Waterloo. But very few focus on the time in between. The guillotines have fallen silent, and Napoleon is still consolidating his power. How many books have you read about his campaign into Egypt?

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Ethan Gage is okay as our hero. On one hand, he occasionally misses when shooting - once trying to kill a Mameluke attacker, he hits a camel instead. OTOH, Ethan's luckier than all get out (which is attributed to Destiny), and apparently smarter than all the French, British, and Egyptians combined. Of course, he's American, which explains everything.

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Also, the Historical Fiction and the Cri-Fi genres don't blend well. We start with 50 pages of medallion madness, then switch almost exclusively to the war campaign for 250 pages, then drop it like a hot patootie and spend the last 100 pages back on the quest for the Ultimate Artifact.

Was it any wonder that I'd taken the risk of returning to Paris? Who cannot love a capital that has three times as many winemakers as bakers? (pg. 4)

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...then again it was a dusky and colorful group, of vests and shawls and scarves and jewelry, including an ankh here and a figurine of dog-headed Anubis there. Their women might not be Cleopatra, but they certainly had an alluring beauty. What lovemaking secrets might they know? I pondered that question for some moments. I am, after all, a scientist. (pg. 56)

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"You're a bloody pagan."

"And what is a pagan? If you look at the origin of the word, it means country dweller, a person of nature who lives to the rhythm of seasons and the sun. If that is paganism, then I am a fervent believer."

"And a believer in what else, exactly?"

"That lives have purpose, that some knowledge is best left guarded, and some power sheathed and unused. Or, if released, that it be used for good." (pg. 171)

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There's always a chance to get rich during war. (pg.5)

I thoroughly enjoyed William Dietrich's treatment of Napoleon - his character, his comrades, his charisma, his conquests, and his catastrophes. I almost wish this had been a straight-up piece of Historical Fiction. The puzzles and mysteries seemed trite. How many times must we learn the secrets of the pyramids and the riddle of the Sphinx?

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Napoleon's Pyramids is the first half of a duology (I knew this going in), and ends awkwardly. There's a cliffhanger finale, but no "story within a story" is wrapped up. And consider that third excerpt again. I don't need to read the sequel to know the fate of the Ultimate Artifact. It's gonna be locked away so that guys wearing black hats cannot misuse its power. I'm very tired of that type of ending.

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So I may or may not get around to the concluding book, The Rosetta Key. I'm much more anxious to find some of Dietrich's "pure" Historical Fiction. He has a book about Attila the Hun called The Scourge Of God; and another called Hadrian's Wall. Those sound very kewl. We'll give this 6½ stars, because it's really not a bad read. But Steve Berry doesn't have to worry about being bumped out as my favorite Action author.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Years ago, Native American Sam Hunter was forced to flee the Crow reservation to avoid being arrested for murder. Happily, he is quite comfortable living as a successful salesman in Los Angeles. That is, until the trickster god, Coyote, (think "Loki") shows up to "help" Sam. And with help like Coyote's, who needs any troubles?

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What's To Like...

This is an early Christopher Moore novel. The humor is a bit less zany than in his two Vampire books, bit there is still a plethora of warm chuckles.

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The book gives you a taste of life on the reservation, without getting all Sally Struthers melodramatic about it. There are some kewl mytholology references, and a bunch of insightful tangents (such as garage sale shoppers who won't take 'No' for an answer) that will make you laugh.

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As with most Moore books, Coyote Blue is, at its core, a love story. Calliope Kincaid is a scatter-brained flower child who has a kid she loves, a biker ex, and has dabbled in just about every religion under the sun. A perfect match for an insurance salesman.

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Kewl New Words (and Phrases)...

Bindle : slang for a folded piece of paper that contains illegal (usually powdered) drugs. Counting coup : winning prestige on the battlefield by acts of defiant bravery in the face of the enemy. Forty-Nine Party : a gathering at which 49 tribal songs are played to honor veterans.

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Excerpts...

Calliope Kincaid waited on the steps of the Tangerine Tree Café thinking about the past lives of lizards. A small, brown alligator lizard was sunning himself on the planter box by the steps and his lidless eyes, glazed but seeing, reminded Calliope of a picture of Jimi Hendrix that her mother had kept next to the bed when she was growing up. She wondered if this lizard could be an incarnation of Jimi, and what he must feel like living in the planter box in front of a café, eating bugs and hiding, after being a rock star. (pg. 49. it turns out the lizard was actually Jim Morrison in a previous life).

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"We can do this," he said. "We'll get him back."

"I know," she said.

"You do?"

She nodded, wiping oatmeal off her chin with a napkin. "That's the scary thing about hope," she said. "If you let it go too long it turns into faith." (pg. 235)

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"We're going to Billings first, to get something."

"It's depressing. You won't like it. There's a big cliff in Billings that was a buffalo jump, but our people never drove the herds over it. The buffalo used to go up to the edge and say, 'Oh, no, it's Billings', then they'd just jump over out of depression. Nope, you don't want to go to Billings." (pg. 259. there really is a big cliff overlooking Billings.)

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Gabriella, Gabriella,

As fair as salmonella. (pg. 21)

I enjoyed Coyote Blue. The writing is excellent; the characters are well-developed and likeable; amd the storyline is well thought-out. There are some great similes scattered throughout ("he was using the road like a buttered harlot - he was all over the place while trying to stay in the middle..."); and Minty Fresh, whom I met in (the later)A Dirty Job, makes his debut here. 8½ Stars.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

At a secret institute, test-lab children are given computer-scrambled instructions and intellect-enhancing drugs to see if they will invent their own language. Deep in the Amazon rainforest, an isolated tribe ingests a powerful local fungus to lapse into a heightened variant of their tongue. In outer space, beings are headed towards earth to barter for our languages. Can Ian Watson tie all of this together into a coherent story and wrap it up in slightly over 200 pages? Hmm.

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What's To Like...

The main theme here is unusual for Sci-Fi - developmental linguistics and its role in both culture and the cosmos. Which is great if you're into such things. Tolkien was, as evidenced by his inventing all sorts of languages for his various creatures.

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The Situational Ethics sub-themes are even more fascinating. Is it okay to pluck babies out of abject poverty and use them as lab rats? Should we swap six still-living brains (that use six different languages) for interplanetary travel technology? Can we build a huge lake in Brazil, if it means destroying the culture and existence of dozens of indigenous tribes? And if so, can we then blow it up for political whims, without asking the Brazilians for permission?

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You even get to meet the aliens, who are neither omnipotent, omniscient, omni-stoic, nor omni-naive. How kewl is that? There's a goodly amount of action, and a decent ending which still allows for a sequel, although I don't believe Ian Watson ever penned one.

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Kewl New Words...

Molecast : another name for a molehill. Scurf : a collection of flakes, scales, or tree needles covering a surface of something. Albedo : the fraction of light (or radiation) reflected back from the earth or other body into space. Epiphytic : of a plant (such as an orchid) that grows on another plant but is not parasitic. Boma : an enclosure for animals; a corral. Nictitating : rapidly blinking the eyes. Trank : slang for to tranquiilize. (I shooda figured that one out). Saturnine : bitter; scornful. Farrago : a hodgepodge of something; a mishmash.

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Excerpts...

He was a small, once muscular man, whose muscles had turned to flab since his days in the army; whose hair had thinned out since then, till it lay plastered stickily over his scalp in short brown fronds - a wet, serrated, dying leaf. The knobby upturned end of his nose stood out from his features, softened with large greasy pores and slightly too large - as though he'd spent a few years with a finger up each nostril stretching them. (pg. 18)

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"Christ, you're not thinking of using nuclear explosives?"

"Nuclear's just a word, Chris - don't get all worked up about a word. They're only one kiloton apiece." (pg. 155)

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"Why can't you people trade-assess properly? If your culture revered the corpse, as the Xorghil dust-whales do, things would be different. These dust-whales are the sentient patterns imposed on the densest dust of a bright nebula, who tow their dying individuals towards a stellar contraction pool where their dead bodies may finally be compacted into a star and reborn as light. They care. But your culture cares nothing for corpses." (pg. 161)

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"They're stoned out of their minds! (...) That's one way to greet the end of the world. (pg. 151)

The Embedding was a bold, new turn in Science Fiction in 1973. Deep concepts were presented and tough questions were asked. I thought it was an interesting read, yet it never reached out and grabbed me. Some of the technical mumbo-jumbo was hard to follow, and is tedious if you're not into theoretical linguistics.

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If you're one of those who learned to speak Klingon, you will probably find this a great book. If you're interested in how sci-fi literature evolved through the years, this is an important milepost. Everybody else may find space alien entymology freaks to be a bit of a stretch. 5 Stars.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Meet the Spellmans. Mom and Dad (Olivia and Albert) run a family-business Private Investigating company. They have 3 children. David (age 30) has been a perfect human being his whole life. Isabel (26) is the black sheep of the family and the narrator of the story. Rae (14) is a negotiating guru. All three children are/were also employees of the family business, and are adept at surveillance, running identity checks, and (when they're not spying for clients) spying on each other..

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The Spellman Files recounts Isabel's misadventures in this whacked-out family, and her efforts to live a normal life. Fat chance..

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What's To Like...

This is a laughs-on-every-page book. There are Isabel's (Izzy's) ten ex-boyfriends, the tattoo-loving best friend, and the vain attempts to get out from under the prying eyes of the rest of the family, especially when it comes to keeping current boyfriends. The footnotes are a hoot too. The 20-page recounting the "tennis wars" will have you ROTFL.

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The characters are likable and well-developed. Almost too well-developed. The first half of TSF is nothing more than a giant backstory. A cold case plot finally arrives around page 200, wanders among more of Izzy's life story, and joins up around page 300 with a subplot involving a sibling disappearance. Both plots eventually resolve themselves, but without any real build-up to a climax..

Kewl New Words...

Only one, and I've looked it up before. Sartorial : pertaining to a tailor or tailoring. One of these days, that word will take root in my mind.

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Excerpts...

"Good morning, Isabel."

"Dad, what are you doing up so early?"

"I thought I'd watch the sun rise."

"How'd it go?"

"I missed it by a half hour. Who knew it was so early?"

"Are you deliberately blocking my path out the door?"

"Yes." (pg. 150)

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Officer Glenn introduced himself and his partner, Officer Jackson, then offered my father a warm handshake and said, "Good evening, sir. Is this your daughter?"

"That depends. What did she do?"

"We received an anonymous tip that a young woman matching your daughter's description was following random people around in the vicinity of Polk Street. Shortly thereafter, we found Emily following an elderly couple on Nob Hill. While that is not a crime, we consider it a somewhat unusual activity for a young lady at this time of night."

"Honey," said my father, "you don't give officers of the law a fake name." (pg. 163)

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The family that surveils together prevails together.

Because they're both PI's, Lisa Lutz's Isabel Spellman will inevitably be compared to Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum. Which is unfair, since they're not of the same genre. You'll find Ms. Plum in the "Mystery" section, and Izzy in "Fiction/Literature".

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I've read some of both series, and each has its merits,. I agree with the bookstores. The Spellman Files is not primarily a mystery, and if you read it for that purpose, you may be disappointed. But as a work of dysfunctional comedy (a genre I just coined), it succeeds nicely. It made me laugh, the characters are engaging, and I'm left wanting to read the sequels. 8½ stars.